Dabbles in Drabbles
by Kimauri
Summary: 100 word drabbles about the Lorax and the Once-ler of... questionable quality? Might possibly add more later.
1. 01 to 10

**A/N:** So... I don't upload much, but I loved The Lorax and The Once-ler so much, I couldn't resist. (I probably should have.) I just used a random word generator and rolled with whatever word it gave me, leading to a few 'odd' prompts, but, whatever.

I'm sorry. I wish this was better.

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Lorax. **

***May is the Once-ler's mom. I couldn't really think of much of a name for her, so...

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><p><strong>01. Label<strong>

Sixteen and pregnant. There's only one word for that and it's not necessarily _screwed_, though isn't there some irony to that? May looks down at her belly, the rounded flesh she only _wishes_ was fat—then maybe she could work and claw her way out of this, but what is she supposed to do? She feels a stirring in her heart, not of love. No. Not love.

"Come on, May!" her mother calls to her. Her family is down stairs, her bags are packed. _They're sending me away_.

No one wants a slut for a daughter.

She storms down below.

**02. Vintage**

Aunt Grizelda is… Well. If there were words for her, then May wouldn't know them. Her and Uncle Ubb's house is small, not cramped, but close, though the atmosphere within makes it feel like a planet-wide gap hangs between each room. It's completely insurmountable and May lets it be, locked away within her room like Rapunzel of old—just that her Prince Charming's not so charming, and certaintly not coming.

She lets records screech and carroon her to sleep, a dreadful melody nobody likes but she entertains the thought that maybe the thing inside her is squirming at the sound.

**03. Logging**

The trunks of trees go trolling by, like corpses stacked in piles a mile high. The Lorax sits and stares; it's just another reminder: he's not getting anywhere. He's tried. He's huffed and he's puffed and he's cried, but some men just won't listen.

Some forget their promises.

And maybe he shouldn't be surprised, but he had expected better of this one. He sits on a tree trunk stump, his furry feet swinging. He's tired today; he's oh so tired. The forest is dying. His very soul is withering, drying up and he knows: he can't weather this storm forever.

**04. Interface**

It's just not fair, but it is a fact: a Lorax is short, small, and just not packed. The Lorax grunts and puts up a fight as yet _another_ one of the Once-ler's meatheads manhandle him out the door. He barely stood a chance. Even as the forest was dying, the Once-ler's sercurity was increasing. As the money piles grew, more jobs opened up and the Lorax began to doubt he'd ever get so close again.

Whatever happened to his friend?

It hadn't been long, but he'd have sworn that kid had a chance.

What could he _do_? None listen.

**05. Kick**

The yarn is yanked from his hands faster than he can blink, and the Once-ler stares dumbly—and a hand comes to _smack_ the side of his head, a solid thump, like a tree branch just slapped him.

"Heh, Oncie, whatcha knitting?" Brett laughs. He holds the cotton monstrocity in his palms, an early prototype of what the Once-ler will one day call a 'thneed'. The Once-ler shouts—Brett's mostly dumb, not mean—but a little bray sounds and Melvin is there, offering a solid kick to the stall door. Down Brett tumbles and the Once-ler smiles.

He whispers, "Thanks."

**06. Extinction**

It's a moment too late, six years of destruction and the lives of millions—the Once-ler looks, truly _looks_ and sees the chaos he's wrought. A land of smog, schlop, and stumps, of starving barbaloots and sick swomme swans, and of humming fish that can't hum.

He pauses, _really_ looks, and sees the last truffula tree as it is dragged to the factory, processed, and the smoke from the factory finally ceases. He looks at the pink thneed in his hands, so fluffy, soft, _worthless_, and looks to the creatures he once made friends with.

Has he just killed them?

**07. Bend**

The Lorax wants to save a forest. He looks and sees a million trees, a thousand barboots, a thousand wonderous fish that hum and sing, a thousand swomme swans that fill the sky with songs. He sees soft tufts blowing in the breeze.

The Once-ler wants his fame. He wants a mother that never looks at him with disgust. He sees, a 'never-ending' supply to bring him both. He sees soft tufts blowing in the breeze.

The Once-ler cuts. The Lorax preaches. Neither ever sees a way that teaches both to get what they want: a forest to last forever.

**08. Red**

It's not blood on his hands. Never. How could it be? Trees don't bleed. They don't scream with voices that carry and accuse.

It's not _his_ fault the Lorax can't keep his forest running. Shouldn't that bossy little creature know how to feed a barbaloot, or whatever that 'magic' of his is supposed to do? It's not the _Once-ler's_ job to make sure those lazy little forest creatures look for food. He's sure there's a truffula grove _somewhere_ out there.

Yet he still can't look at his hands. He dresses in green, and wonders, fleetingly, where the grass has gone.

**09. Family**

What does the Lorax know?

The Once-ler lays in bed some nights, exhausted from running a company that sells to everywhere. It seems problems never end, and his family is rarely there to care. The Once-ler doesn't mind. They sing his name now, no ridicule attached. He'll endure a thousand nights of sleeplessness if it would only feel genuine.

The Lorax can't understand that. What family does he have?

As he lays in bed some nights, the Once-ler tells himself things are better. Better than ever. He just wishes that wasn't so depressing to think.

So he refuses to think.

**10. Troop**

The Lorax never stops his fighting. He can't rally forest creatures—they shiver and run at the might of the Once-ler's terrible choppers—but he can marshall his own resolve. He speaks for trees. He can speak for barbaloots, and for birds and fish that can't (any longer) speak on their own.

It's that _family_ the Once-ler laughably calls his own. They've found their golden goose and will guard the Once-ler like a treasure, lock it up and blind it. The Lorax knows. The woman-thing and the Once-ler's mother, they won't be there once this business fails.

Because it _will_.

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><p>Should this even be added upon?<p> 


	2. 11 to 20

**A/N:** Thank you such much for the kind reviews last time, guys. They really were more than I expected. I hope you enjoy these, and I was thinking of maybe turning this into a 100 drabbles challenge.

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><p><strong>11. Photograph<strong>

It's an 8x11 photograph— digital. Technocolored. In it, the Once-ler stands with his mother's arms around his shoulders, their heads pressed together, the rest of the family crowded around them.

It was taken shortly after the first factory opened and the Once-ler lets it sit, facedown, on a back corner table. His mother pushes it forward every once in a while to his desk. She thinks she's helping her case.

Instead he sees fingers clutching, grabbing. His family looks at him like vultures, and sleeping under its gaze gives him nightmares. He hates knowing _why_.

_They never cared. Never will._

**12. Treasure**

The Lorax doesn't know it, but the Once-ler snapped a picture of him once. It was _terrible_. Being one of the oldest cameras in existence, the Once-ler had stood absolutely still in the chaos that was the forest. There's a brown smear where Pipsqueak ran by, a few bright splotches where the fish had wandered by. He can barely make out the Lorax's shape—the loud creature was, _always_ moving.

The Once-ler lets it linger even as he turns old and gray. It hurts sometimes, to think this is all he has of friends gone by.

He makes it enough.

**13. Fog**

Sometimes the Lorax tries to make excuses. _He's just a kid. He'll come around. It's his family. The poor kid _needs_ something._ He won't let the mistake be both their faults, so he makes it neither.

One day he muses it's the fog. It has to be. _Poor kid can't see the forest for what it is._ He must not notice the grayness and the dust the forest has become. He laughs, sadly, the other animals eying him as he pitures the swomme swans banding together, beating their wings and lifting the fog away.

He really must be going crazy.

**14. Prestige**

"It's coming along so well! Don't you see? They are _so_ close this time!

"And what? You'd jeopardize that with unfounded fears? The forest'll be fine! We can stop anytime we want to. This isn't a problem. If things were _really_ bad, you'd know.

"You're a smart guy. You could fix this in a heartbeat, you're just busying right now is all. Mother… She'll come around this time! If the company was just a little bit bigger… We could get through this _faster_ then… Help the animals sooner…"

The Once-ler grins at his reflection. _If it's for _their_ sake then…_

**15. Enough**

"Are you happy now?" the Lorax says.

The Once-ler hasn't moved from the stairwell where he flopped to the ground, staring off as the last truffula tree is dragged away.

"I hope you're big enough. You can't really _get_ any bigger, can you?

"Did you see this ending any other way? What do you _think_ happens when you go on biggering and biggering and biggering? Everything else gets pushed out.

"You're not…" The Lorax hangs his head. _You weren't a bad kid. I just don't know anymore_.

The Lorax leaves.

His family leaves.

It still wasn't enough—not for them.

**16. Taker**

Take, take—his mother's a taker. She's a liar, she's a faker, and the Once-ler lets the bitterness wash over him in his misery. She takes from everyone—himself, his brothers, so many others.

How did he ignore it all?

He can't ignore it now. It lingers in the air, circles as dust on what was once a forest floor. His inherited his mother within him—he's a taker too, with nothing to give but worthless thneeds and bad lungs. He took all the forest had to give just to give it all to a mother who understood nothing more.

**17. Free**

A few whispers usually make it his way. Ted wasn't the first to come to his Lurkum, and he had almost thought he wouldn't be the last. The Once-ler hears whispers from other children, even a few adults who come and covet the last truffula seed.

They speak of bottled air, of a man named O'Hare that's changing the world. The Once-ler hacks and coughs as he listens. He knows. This bottled air business—it's hardly any better than his thneeds. He can see the O'Hare factories hacking and smogging from the windows of his Lurkum.

The world never changes.

**18. Nice**

"Oncie, you're just too nice. You know that's your problem, right?"

The Once-ler looks at his mother, surprised, even though he shouldn't be. Pipsqueak shies away when his mother appears—Once-ler notices Pipsqueak does that with a lot of his family. "What's wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothing, Oncie, nothing at all. _You_ know I love you just as you are—" and that's news to the Once-ler "—but there have been some… whispers."

"Whispers?"

"Oncie, you can't let the quota of thneeds be so low. I know it's that Lorax-thing, but you gotta look after family first."

He hesitates.

**19. Duplicate**

The Once-ler can't help but mourn the fact his thneeds are made by factories and not his own hands. Knitting was always _his_ skill—the one _actually _enjoyed, not at all like the cooking and cleaning and farm work his mother had him do as a child.

The thneeds he made himself were always unique. Different each and every time, with a new use and a new look, a new shape he never _completely_ managed to replicate.

Machines have removed that special quality, but people never notice. The Once-ler doubts they care so long as the factories churn them out.

**20. Breathing**

It's hard to notice the first fresh breath of air, but the second and third are easier. The Once-ler savors each and every one of them, the guilt and despair of decades passed easing as he breathes. The air is fresher, the skies are bluer than he remembers. That which is new is easier to appreciate, and that which _comes back_ is a treasure, even if it's as simple as a breath.

The trees are barely bigger than dandelions, but they are growing. Their tufts wave in the winds bringing fresh air and the Once-ler knows.

_There are _always_ survivors._

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><p>I'd love it if somebody wanted to send me a prompt. One word, see what I make of it? No guarantee it's what <em>you<em> had in mind, but I could use a few challenges...


	3. 21 to 30

**A/N:** Special thanks to randomfics, who supplied the word _loquacious_ and the request (I hope I interpreted right) for more crossovers with other Dr. Seuss stories. As for part one of her(?) request, a new story might soon appear, perhaps with a little more coherency and continuancy than my current stories.

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><p><strong>21. Village<strong>

The Lorax had never fully looked into the doings of the village at the base of the truffula forest, not since its creation. He had thought he never needed to.

This Once-ler wasn't the first to think a truffula forest was an item for sell, but he was the most resistant to learn. The founders of the village had been just like him, but maybe it had mattered that _they_ had seen him enter with thunderous lightning. Maybe fear of God was all that kept people sane, and maybe it was fear of _magic_ that kept them from the forest.

**22. Customary**

"I'm not doing anything _extraordinary_," the Once-ler says quietly one day.

There's no one around for once. No mother, no aunt, no brothers, no Lorax. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, Pipsqueak on his lap. The bear is munching on marshmallows as he absent-mindedly feeds him.

"I mean, who _doesn't_ chop a few trees? I send the trunks away to lumber companies to make a few extra bucks. Plus, those fruits make a pretty penny at the market. People can get food _and_ homes, as _well_ as clothes, all from one tree. I mean… How bad can I possibly be?"

**23. Terror**

Horton hangs on to every word as a traveling flock of swomme swans speak. "It's terrible," they honk, their once legendarily sweet voices harsh and rough, their plumage not quite so luscious as Horton can remember the flocks being. "Machines that belch and spew smoke and schlop… Trees falling as they go snickety snick. There aren't many truffula trees left at all…"

"What sort of creature _does_ that?" Horton asks.

"A Once-ler," they honk, heads hanging.

Horton wants to ask more, he really, truly does, but Mrs. Kangaroo shoos the crowd to disperse.

"Now, you're scaring the children with lies!"

**24. Doing**

The Cat doesn't like to admit it much, but sometimes, _sometimes_, he sets a bad example. His memory is short at times, but he'd never forget the kid he played with one rainy afternoon, the one who most embraced his wondrous machines and flair.

He wonders, now, if doing really does any good, because only action could have created this wasteland of a forest. Trees drop to the ground without preamble, and are dragged off without fanfare. The machines have a regrettably familiar form, a callback to a childhood only half-remembered.

This time, it actually _hurts_.

_Where's my little buddy?_

**25. Loquacious**

"It's a good thing you're good with words, kid."

The Once-ler glares at the Lorax. What is he complaining about now? There's plenty of forest out there—he can see it from his _window_ for crying out loud!

"I think you should leave—"

"Have you really not noticed the coughing? The diseases? What's your silver tongue gonna say when people ask you why? Why you ruined their children's world, why their children have no fresh air to breathe, why their children are _sick_, beanpole—"

"Guards!"

The Lorax looks at him.

"What are you gonna say to _yourself_, kid_?_"

**26. Gentleman**

"Oncie, ya gotta look _presentable_, now, baby. We can't have you dressing in those old rags anymore, dear. You need more… _flair_."

The Once-ler looks at his own clothes in confusion. As far as garment went in his family, he had always gotten a slightly better deal that Brett and Chet—he was too tall for their old clothes, and for much anything _else_ the family had to offer.

But his mother steps back to reveal a green suit and long gloves, and for once the Once-ler feels a surge of love.

All because she remembered green was his favorite.

**27. Gray**

That's what he's becoming. Old and gray, withering to match the land.

Only a few shards remain of his mirrors, but the Once-ler doesn't really need them to know. How much longer does he have? Not that his death would be a tragedy… but who will possess the last truffula seed then? He's hardly worthy, but who can he trust it to, who _is_ worthy to plant it?

He thinks of those who have come to him in search of riches. Those who wish to abuse the forest the same way he had.

He lives in a _world_ of Once-lers.

**28. Shock**

The Lorax stands and stares, wide-eyed and disbelieving. It's been decades, the kid is older and grayer, but maybe he's still a kid underneath it all anyway.

In his hands, there's a photo, yellow and brittle with age but he handles it with care. Anyone else out there would look at call it an abstract, too vague and blurry to make out, but the Lorax can. He can see his own familiar shape, and in the corner he swears that's a barbaloot with a familiar white patch.

Even after all these years… Even during the factory years…

_Kid never forgot_.

**29. Estate**

A boy grew under the smoke and smog of a dead, gray world, only a stone's throw away from what was once the greatest financial empire the world has ever known. He woke to coughs each and every morning, and slept under a starless sky.

But that wasn't what he remembered most.

He imagined the power that must have existed to change a world in such a way. He thinks of the _money_ it must have brought. He closes his eyes, dreaming of blind idiots who'll buy anything.

He grows up to be O'Hare, the one who 'saved the world'.

**30. Virus**

They say its starts with one. A little bug that worms its way inside, burrowing _in_ and then out.

The Lorax can only run as the Once-ler's shadow over the land grows, as biggering and biggering consume the land, the trees, and eats away at the kid. He can see this illness for what it is, and wishes he knew how to _stop_ it, but he _can't_. And that's the point.

Greed grows when left unchecked, and boy, did that kid ever let it grow. The Lorax knows only one cure for greed such as that, and fears it.

_Destruction_.

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><p>I wouldn't say no to more prompts...<p> 


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